When he heard roaring, crackling noises, he turned his head and saw a wall of flame erupt, creating a barrier between them and the advancing guards.
Shouts of fear and curses of anger reached him, but none of the bullets were getting through.
You can’t keep that up forever. Let’s get the hell out of here.This time it was the man speaking.
As the fire burned behind them, the man grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her away. Craig and Stephanie followed.
The four of them raced into the trees, then into a clearing where a four-wheel-drive SUV sat. The man and woman climbed in front, with the man behind the wheel. Craig and Stephanie jumped in the back.
Before they’d clicked their seatbelts, he took off, jouncing along a dirt road. The ride smoothed out as they came out onto a two-lane highway.
In the backseat, Craig pulled Stephanie close and slung his arm around her shoulder, still trying to process everything that had happened.
“You’re like us,” he breathed, speaking to the people in the front seat.
“Yeah,” the man answered.
“Thanks for showing up.”
“We couldn’t leave you in danger,” the woman said as she turned around. “We haven’t officially met. I’m Rachel Harper, and this is my husband, Jake.”
“Again, thanks,” Stephanie said.
“Who was after you?” the woman asked. “I mean besides John Reynard’s men.”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Craig said. “But I think it had something to do with the Solomon Clinic, since they apparently knew to show up in Houma.”
Jake Harper cursed and glanced at his wife. “I thought we were done with that.”
“Why?” Stephanie asked.
“Dr. Solomon is dead. And so is Bill Wellington who funded the project through a Washington think tank. That should have laid the past to rest. But it appears that someone is still hunting us.”
“It looks like it,” Rachel murmured.
“Why are they doing it? What do they want?” Stephanie asked.
“I guess they want more information about the children from the clinic. The Howell Institute fronted the money for a lot of pie-in-the-sky projects for the Defense Department and other agencies. Solomon convinced them he could create super-intelligent children by manipulating fertilized eggs.”
“So his fertility practice was a source of the eggs.”
“Exactly. And when the kids turned out to have normal intelligence, Wellington shut the project down.”
“Why isn’t that the end of it?”
“Because of what we are,” Jake answered. “We’ve got powers they don’t understand. Which makes us a threat, or maybe an asset that someone can exploit.”
Stephanie shuddered.
“One good thing about the situation—whoever was stalking you sent an invasion force to the wedding.”
“Why is that good?” Craig asked.
“Because they took out a lot of the guards, and the guests saw the battle. They know the invaders are responsible for anything bad that happened.”
“Like Reynard’s death,” Stephanie murmured.
“Exactly,” Craig said.
